Privacy policy

• The apps are free and need no account. They have no advertising, and no analytics or tracking.
• On first use, a short welcome survey asks your name, email, organisation (optional) and what you will use Fieldra for. Your answers are sent to Luminex Ltd when the device is online, with the app version and the kind of device. That is all Luminex Ltd receives.
• Your survey data is saved on your own phone and computer. Luminex Ltd does not receive it or keep a copy.
• Data only moves when you send it: to your own devices over Wi-Fi, or as files you choose to share.
• The apps use a few online services for maps, directions, app updates and one download of a photo-recognition model. They are listed below.

Fieldra is made by Luminex Ltd, a company registered in Sierra Leone. This policy covers the Fieldra app for Android and iPhone, Fieldra Desktop for macOS and Windows, and this website. For any question about it, write to info@luminex-technology.com.

The first time you open the Fieldra app or Fieldra Desktop, it asks a few questions: your name, your email address, your organisation (optional) and what you will use Fieldra for. It is a survey, not an account: you never sign in to use the apps. The answers are saved on the device and sent the next time it is online, together with the app (phone or desktop), its version, the system (Android, iPhone, macOS or Windows), the device model or computer name, and when the app was first and last online.

Luminex Ltd uses this only to understand who uses Fieldra and for what, to plan its development, and to contact you about Fieldra if needed. We do not sell it or share it for advertising. It is stored with our cloud service provider, which gives each installation its own anonymous key so that only that installation can change its own answers. Only authorised Luminex Ltd staff can read the answers.

While online, the app also checks a setting on our servers that says whether it may be used (for example, if free use ends, or an installation is stopped for misuse). This sends no survey data. To have your answers deleted, write to info@luminex-technology.com.

What it saves on your phone

Your projects and survey records: positions and their accuracy, times, notes, measurements, photos, tracks, form answers, survey plans and settings. They are stored in the app’s own storage on the phone. Photos you take can also be saved to your photo gallery, if you allow it. None of this is sent to Luminex Ltd; only the welcome survey is (see above).

Permissions and why they are needed

• Location: to record where each observation, sample and track is. Road tracks, transects and trails can keep recording while the screen is off; this only happens while you are recording, and Android shows a notification while it does.
• Camera and photos: to take photos for records, scan labels, and attach photos you already have.
• Microphone: only for the sound-level tool, which measures loudness. Sound is not recorded or stored.
• Motion sensors: for the compass (pitch and roll) and optional road-surface readings.
• Bluetooth: to connect GNSS receivers and field instruments such as pH, turbidity and conductivity meters. It is not used to find your location.
• Local network: to find Fieldra Desktop and other phones on the same Wi-Fi, and to send projects to them.

You can refuse or withdraw any permission in the phone’s settings. The feature that needs it then stops working; the rest of the app carries on.

When data leaves your phone

• To your own devices: when you send a project to Fieldra Desktop or another phone, it goes straight to that device over your local Wi-Fi, not through the internet or our servers. Fieldra Desktop has to be paired with a code first, and a device receiving a new project has to accept it.
• Files you share: exports (CSV, GeoJSON, KML, PDF, ZIP and others) go wherever you send them, for example by email or to cloud storage. That service’s own privacy policy then applies.
• Maps and directions (Mapbox): the map, satellite imagery and walking directions come from Mapbox. To show a map, the app asks Mapbox for the area on screen. For walking directions (Way Back and survey plans) it sends the start and end points of the route. Mapbox’s software in the app may also send Mapbox anonymous usage data, as described in Mapbox’s privacy policy.
• App updates: the app checks for small updates through our app-update service. To pick the right update it sends the app’s version, the kind of phone and a random number that identifies the installation (not you). No survey data is sent.
• Welcome survey and access check (our cloud service provider): your welcome survey answers, the app version and the phone model, and a check of whether the app may be used, as described in “The welcome survey”.
• Crash reports: if the app crashes or hits an error, it sends a report to our crash-reporting service: what went wrong in the app’s code, the screens opened just before, the app version, and the kind of phone and its system. Reports contain no name, email address, position, photos or survey data, and are used only to fix the app.
• Photo recognition: the first time you use it, the app downloads its model from Hugging Face. After that, recognition runs on the phone: your photos are not uploaded.

Fieldra Desktop saves everything on your computer: records and photos received from phones, layers you draw or import, drone files and settings. It keeps them in its own data folder (on a Mac, ~/Library/Application Support/Fieldra; on Windows, %AppData%\Fieldra). It receives data from phones only on your local network: from phones paired with its code, or as a transfer you accept on the computer.

To show maps it downloads map tiles from these services, and keeps a copy on the computer so maps also work offline: OpenFreeMap and Protomaps (street maps and offline map downloads), OpenStreetMap, Esri (satellite imagery), and terrain tiles hosted on Amazon Web Services. These services see your computer’s internet address and which map area is requested, as any website would. Fieldra Desktop sends them no survey data, and it has no account, analytics or tracking. It sends its welcome survey answers to our cloud service provider and checks whether it may be used, as described in “The welcome survey”.

This website is run by a web hosting provider. Like any web host, it records technical details of each visit (internet address, browser, page and time) to run the site and protect it from abuse. The website sets no cookies, and uses no analytics or tracking tools. Its fonts are served from the website itself.

The download buttons take you to Google Play, the App Store, the Mac App Store, the Microsoft Store or GitHub. Their own privacy policies apply there.

Surveys can record information about other people, for example the answers to a household questionnaire. That data belongs to you or your organisation, which decides what is collected and why. Luminex Ltd never receives it.

If you collect it, please:

• ask for consent (the questionnaire can start with a consent question) and only record what the survey needs;
• keep phones and computers locked with a passcode, and send projects only over Wi-Fi networks you trust;
• delete projects from devices once the data is safely in the office.

Data on a device is protected by that device’s own security, so use a screen lock. Transfers between your devices stay on your local network; they are not encrypted, so do not send projects over public or shared Wi-Fi. Fieldra Desktop only takes records from phones paired with its code, and a new project sent to a phone or computer is only accepted after someone agrees on that device.

Data stays on your devices until you delete it. You can delete records or whole projects in the app. Deleting records also removes them from the devices you send the project to next. Uninstalling the phone app removes everything it stored, except photos you saved to your gallery. On a computer, delete projects in Fieldra Desktop, or remove its data folder after uninstalling it. Welcome survey answers sent to Luminex Ltd are kept while Fieldra is offered, unless you ask us to delete them earlier at info@luminex-technology.com.

Because your survey data stays on your devices, you are in control of it: you can see, change, export and delete it at any time. If your data was collected by an organisation using Fieldra, contact that organisation about it.

If you write to us, we keep your message only to answer it. You can ask us what we hold about you, and ask us to correct or delete it, at info@luminex-technology.com. We follow the law of Sierra Leone. If you are in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you also have the rights of the GDPR, including the right to complain to your data protection authority.

Fieldra is a work tool for survey teams. It is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect data about them.

If Fieldra starts handling data differently, for example with a new online service, we will update this page and the date at the top. For important changes, we will also say so in the apps.

Luminex Ltd, Sierra Leone · info@luminex-technology.com